


Eternal Soliloquy

by renecdote



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Graveside Conversations, I'm really sorry about this one, ghost jason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 15:16:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13790433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: “Just because I’m not here, doesn’t mean I’m not here,” Jason insists. Not that it makes a difference; no one ever hears him.The one where Jason isn't resurrected, but that's not going to stop him from being a part of the family.





	Eternal Soliloquy

**Author's Note:**

> I had this angsty idea so of course I had to write it out and make everyone suffer with me.

“Damian asked about you the other day.” Dick laughs a little as he says it. “It wasn’t even anything normal. Not ‘what was Jason like?’ Not ‘did Jason like this?’ or ‘did Jason like that?’ He wanted to know why half your old clothes were pink.” Another laugh, more watery. “I don’t know how the hell he got into your wardrobe but I told him it was because of that time Bruce tried to show you how to do laundry and the colour in your favourite red sweatshirt ran. It ruined that book shirt you always used to wear. You remember, don’t you?”

_ Of course I remember, _ Jason is about to say.  _ I was mad at him for days, even after he bought me a new one exactly the same. _

But Dick is already continuing, “Of course you don’t. Dead people don’t have memories.”

It’s a bitter reminder. As if the way he leans into his big (bigger, growing) brother’s side and leans and leans and leans and leans all the way through isn’t enough. 

“Just because I’m not here, doesn’t mean I’m not  _ here _ ,” Jason insists. Not that it makes a difference; no one ever hears him.

“God, Jay, I wish you were here,” Dick says, and he’s definitely crying now. The silent kind where he covers his eyes and pretends he isn’t. “You’d be such a great big brother. Probably better than the job I’m doing. Did I tell you Tim’s mad at me again?”

Jason sighs, flopping back to look up at the overcast sky. It might rain later. That’s always fun, standing in the middle of a thunderstorm and watching everyone else curse as they get wet. “No, Dickie, you didn’t tell me,” he says. “What’d you do now?”

It’s funny, he thinks, that he knows more about Dick’s life, feels closer to his big brother, now that he’s dead. Except for the way it’s not funny at all.

Dick talks about Tim and Damian’s latest argument and Jason listens. It’s all he can do. He can’t even offer advice. It’s weird, being on the periphery of a family he never got the chance to be part of. Sure, he had Bruce and Alfred, and Dick when he was around, but it wasn’t the same. 

“You think we would have been closer?” he asks, tracing his finger through a small patch of dirt, drawing Superman’s shield. “If I hadn’t died? You think we would have been real brothers like you are with Tim and Damian?”

If Dick had been around more instead of keeping his distance from Bruce and Gotham, maybe they’d have been closer. It hadn’t been something Jason worried about much at the time, but now he aches for an older brother who can just wrap him in a hug and make the chilling loneliness of his eternal, ghostly existence go away for a while.

Dick sighs. His hand, when he drops it back to his side, skims through Jason’s hair. It’s nothing like the hair ruffles Jason used to be subjected to all the time. He never thought he’d miss those.

Never thought he’d miss a lot of things.

“I guess I should get back,” Dick says, but he doesn’t stand. “Make sure they’re not tearing the Manor - or each other - apart.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” Jason agrees, but it’s half-hearted. He’s willing to sacrifice a few expensive vases if it means Dick will stay and talk a little longer. Sometimes he thinks that if they just chat long enough, his voice might actually get through.

Dick rolls his shoulders back like he’s psyching himself up to leave. When he does push himself to his feet, it’s nothing flashy. No handstand or backward roll, just a weary straightening. “Goodbye, Jay,” he says. He always makes a point of saying it, like he’s making up for the fact that he never got to the first time. 

Jason doesn’t say goodbye. He never does, hates how final it sounds, like if he admits the conversation is over it’ll have ended for good. If he leaves it open, he can close his eye and pretend, at least for a little while longer, that Dick will be back in a sec, that he’ll sit back down and nudge Jason with a smile and say, “So where were we?”

Jason screws his eyes shut and listens to his brother’s footsteps fade away and he hopes that today will be the day that happens.

—

Jason likes to hang out by his grave. It’s nice, quiet. Peaceful. Not a lot of other ghosts haunt this secluded little graveyard. Not a lot of people visit either. 

Sometimes Bruce comes out here. More often it’s the new kid, though. Tim. Timmy. Timbo. With the amount of crap Jason now knows about his life, they’re well into nickname territory.

And Tim calls him Jay, sometimes, so it’s only fair that Jason return the favour.

“You’ll never believe what happened today, Jay,” he’s saying now. Sitting cross-legged just to the side of Jason’s headstone. Like he thinks Jason will care whether he sits on top of where his coffin is. Or maybe he just feels weird about it.

_ “ _ What won’t I believe?” Jason asks in the pause between Tim’s talking. He always does that. Pauses, like Jason’s going to answer. It’s kind of amusing, kind of sad. Jason relishes the chance to pretend he’s having a real conversation with a real, living person though. Ghosts are just so damn morose. If he talks to them too long, he starts to feel all sad.

If he doesn’t talk to anyone, he just feels lonely.

So Tim prattles on about his new friends Superboy and Impulse, the world splitting into an adults world and a kids world, the wild excuses he’s been making up to explain to his dad why he’s never home. “Being a teenage superhero is hard,” he sighs.

Jason rolls his eyes. “Yeah well, don’t worry about it too much, I’m sure he’ll replace you too before long and then you won’t have to worry about it.”

It’s a joke. Mostly. Accepting that Bruce had replaced him with some new kid not even six months after his death had been hard. It had hurt, more than anything else. Even those last moments when he could feel his chest caving in and his every movement scraped shattered bones against each other. Not a single second of that agony had compared to the punch to the gut that hearing about the new Robin had been.

He’s over it now though. Mostly. Not the pain, that still creeps up on him if he stands still too long, but the numbing anger that had followed it. He’d wanted so badly to be able to direct that anger at Tim or Bruce, to have someone to blame for how messed up it had all been, but it wasn’t Tim’s fault that Bruce had been spiralling without someone to pull him back, and it wasn’t Bruce’s fault that his son’s death had torn him apart. 

“I just want to help,” Tim had confessed on his first visit, young and skinny, annoyingly earnest, arms wrapped tightly around himself in a green sweater. Jason had hated it, seeing his favourite colour on this person who was trying to fill the gap he left. “I don’t want- I could never replace you, Jason, but Batman needs a Robin. And I already know the secret, so it may as well be me, right?”

Jason hadn’t seen it that way at first. It didn’t matter how close to the edge he saw Bruce stepping, he hadn’t wanted some new kid to come in and make it all better. He hadn’t wanted Tim Drake to put the smile back on Bruce’s face and patch over the gaping hole of Jason’s absence. It would’ve been different if it was Dick, or even one of the other heroes, but this random kid? No. 

So the second time Tim had come to talk to him, Jason had retreated to the back of the cemetery and sulked by Mordecai Wayne’s grave. And the third. And the fourth. And the fifth. And many more.

But Tim had kept coming back and he’d kept talking and somewhere along the way Jason had stopped being mad at him and started wondering if they might have been friends in another life. One where Jason hadn’t died.

He thinks he’d rather he’d just stayed alive in this one so they could have been brothers instead.

—

Barbara doesn’t come very often, but that’s understandable. She’s busy running a vigilante empire. Jason hears from Dick that she goes by Oracle now. He’s glad one of them got their lives back on track after that psycho clown at least. (And only a little bit bitter that it wasn’t him.)

The first time she visits, Jason’s so overcome by flashes of green and laughter and anger that he has to go away. He wants to hit something, pummel it into dust beneath his fists, but all he can do is collapse to his knees and scream his fury to the sky. The sun beats down, hot and humid, and Jason wishes, not for the first time that if the Joker couldn’t be dead instead, Jason could have at least taken him with him. Not that he wants to be trapped in this limbo with the clown forever, but it’d sure as hell be better than letting that murderer run free out there.

By the time Jason calms himself down, the sun has long since set and Barbara is gone.

The second time is… better. He doesn’t freak out, at least, even though the fury still fizzles beneath his skin at every reminder of the lives the Joker has ruined.  _ If Bruce would just kill the bastard... _

“You still tell Bruce he’s being an idiot when he needs to hear it?” Jason asks with a smile that feels strained. That’s his favourite thing about Babs: she never takes anyone’s shit, not even Batman’s.

Barbara doesn’t talk to him much (Jason thinks that’s a little ironic, considering her new hero name), mostly she just looks pensive or sad. When she does talk, though, it’s usually about Bruce or Dick and the latest stupid stunt they’ve pulled. One day she surprises him by saying “Dick killed the Joker” and Jason sits up so fast his head spins.

“Dickhead did  _ what? _ ”

Barbara doesn’t sound happy though, not like she should be with that stupid clown dead. She looks angry, hands curled into fists in her lap. “Bruce didn’t let it stick. The Joker was  _ dead _ and he fucking revived him.”

“Son of a bitch,” Jason says. He has half a mind to storm up to the Manor and put all his ghostly energy into tearing a chunk out of Bruce. Anger burns beneath his skin, so much that he’s almost shaking with it. It makes his chest ache and his eyes burn.  _ How dare he...! _ He clenches his fist. As soon as he figures out how to break through to the physical plane he’s going to wring that bastard’s neck.

(He’s not entirely sure whether he means The Joker or Bruce.)

For now, he’s got Barbara to be mad for the both of them. 

—

“So you’re Jason, huh?”

“That’s me,” Jason says from where he’s lying on top of his grave. It’s a bad day. The kind where he’s feeling sad and angry and hates being dead. Hates that he can’t just be. dead.

He doesn’t know this new visitor. Doesn’t know if she’ll make it a better day or a worse day. He lifts his head to look at her without moving. Neck pain isn’t really a problem when you’re incorporeal.

“Well, um, hi, I guess,” the girl says, stuffing her hands into her coat pockets. It’s winter, the wind would be biting if Jason could feel it. “My name’s Stephanie.”

“Hi Stephanie,” Jason parrots. 

The wind steals a lock of blonde hair and whips it away from where the rest is caught under a purple beanie. Stephanie lifts a hand to tuck it behind her ear. She looks around, some light in her eyes. Curiosity? Huh, well if she is one of those ghost believes she’s gonna be disappointed. That gust was all Mother Nature.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here, really,” Stephanie says. Her gaze is back on Jason’s headstone now, cutting right through him to read the inscription. “I guess I just wanted to meet the boy who gets thrown in my face all the time.”

Jason blinks. Well… that was unexpected. “B been bad-mouthing me again?” he asks, head thumping back on the ground. Except without the satisfaction of it actually thumping.

“‘Don’t be like Jason’,” the girl mimics Batman. “‘I won’t let another kid die because they didn’t follow an order’.” She snorts, drops the growly voice. “Well maybe if he actually trained me I wouldn’t end up dead.”

Stephanie kicks a rock and it skitters through Jason’s ankle. Her words, though, those hit Jason right in the chest, solid as solid can be. He jumps to his feet.

“He says that?” he demands. “Like it’s my damn fault the Joker took a crowbar to my chest? Like I wasn’t doing the same fucking thing he’s wanted to do since he was twelve years old - trying to save my mum!” His chest heaves, breathing ragged with emotion. “I did what he taught me! I did what he woulda done! And my mum turned around and stabbed me in the back and  _ I _ get the blame?!”

Stephanie shivers and wraps her arms around herself. Her lips are tinged with blue. She looks around, eyes wide. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean… Jason? Are you…? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I’ll, I’ll just…”

And then she’s hurrying back up the hill toward the Manor. Jason reaches out like he can stop her and his fingers swipe uselessly through the trailing end of her scarf.

“Fuck,” he says. Drops back down onto his butt and twists his fingers into his hair like if he just tries hard enough he can feel the pain. He curses again. 

It takes him several long minutes to realise that he’s crying.

—

This girl isn’t like the last one. This one is silent. Jason stands behind his headstone and watches her, feeling a little like she’s watching him in return. But that’s impossible. People don’t see him. They don’t hear him. They don’t feel him. They don’t know he’s here.

“Hello,” he says anyway, because Alfred instilled good manners in him and he’s not going to forget them just because he’s dead. 

The girl doesn’t reply. She kneels down and traces the words on the headstone, mouthing the letters silently as she does.  _ J-A-S-O-N-T-O-D-D.  _

Jason watches her curiously. After she’s finished tracing the inscription, she leans back, hands splayed on the earth behind her. Her gaze wanders around the rest of the small private cemetery before landing back on Jason. He steps forward.

“Can you see me?”

The girl’s gaze returns to his headstone and she frowns. “Jay-son,” she says, sounding out the letters. Then she repeats, quieter, “Son. Bruce’s son. My… Brother.” She smiles, points to herself. “I am Cass.”

“Oh.” Jason isn’t sure what to say to that, except maybe a crack about Bruce’s orphan hoarding. But that doesn’t feel appropriate. “I have a sister?”

He could be mad about that. Mad like he’s mad about a lot of things these days. Mad that Bruce has filled the hole he left behind and started stacking on top of it too.

Mostly he’s just sad. Jason always wanted a sister. Or a little brother. Now he’s got multiple of both and he can’t even enjoy it because he’s dead. “It would’ve been cool to actually meet you, Cass,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets and kicking at a clump of weeds sprouting up beside his headstone.

Cassandra doesn’t say anything else, but her eyes lock onto those weeds and she smiles.

She comes back the next day with a book. Sits against Jason’s headstone and stumbled through the words of Dr Seuss while Jason pretends he’s actually helping her. It’s the nicest few hours he’s had in a while.

After that, he doesn’t see her for two months. Then one morning, just as the sun is painting the sky yellow, she comes down with another book and her arm in a sling. “Hello,” she says.

Jason smiles.

—

Alfred brings flowers. Roses and zinnias hand-picked from his garden. The roses are for Mister and Missus Wayne, one each, nestled carefully in front of their headstones. The zinnia is for Jason. Alfred places it just as carefully as he does the others then stands back up.

“He misses you,” is how he usually starts his chats. “We all do.”

“I know, Alfie,” Jason promises, aching to reach out and hug the man who’s basically his grandpa. He settles for hovering his hand over Alfred’s clasped hands, close enough he can imagine they’re touching. “I miss you too.”

The visits from Alfred are always the ones that make Jason saddest. He doesn’t come to Jason to whinge, or to share exciting news, or to be sad. He just comes to talk, to update Jason on what’s going on in the Manor.

To be fair, it usually ends with both of them sad but it doesn’t start that way. Today, it starts with a tale about Ace and Titus tracking mud through the Manor. By the time Alfred gets to the part about spraying both them and Damian with a hose, Jason is laughing so hard it’s soundless wheezing.

And then Alfred just has to go and bring up that time Jason got so muddy on patrol he was washing dirt out of his hair for days. And then he has to go all quiet and melancholy and dab at his eyes with his handkerchief. And now  _ Jason’s _ eyes are damp from tears that have nothing to do with laughter.

“My dear boy…” Alfred murmurs. “And to think I never thought I’d miss the mischief you used to get up to.”

Jason stomps his foot, doesn’t care that it makes him look childish. He basically is a child still. Always will be. “It’s not fair!”

He shouldn’t be dead. He was just trying to do the right thing, just trying to be a hero. If Bruce had only got there faster-

No. Jason clenches his hands into fists. It’s not Bruce’s fault. It’s that monster’s. That stupid psycho clown who still gets to walk the earth while Jason’s buried in it. 

“Why didn’t you kill him?” Jason asks Alfred, swiping angrily at the tears cascading down his cheeks. “You don’t have a stupid rule against killing, why didn’t you do it?”

Alfred doesn’t answer. He just dabs at his eyes again and places a hand on the top of Jason’s headstone. “No!” Jason yells because Alfred always does this when he leaves and Jason doesn’t want him to leave yet. He throws himself at the butler and for a brief second it’s like he’s hugging warmth, face pressed against a woolen overcoat, safe and comforted. And then he hits the ground hard.

Alfred steps back. “Goodbye, Master Jason.”  He doesn’t even spare a glance for Jason sobbing on his hands and knees as he turns and heads back toward the Manor to start preparing dinner.

—

It’s summer and the sun is high in the sky. Jason’s head is turned upwards, eyes closed, pretending he can feel the sun warm his face. So he doesn’t notice when someone stops beside him. Jumps when a sigh rumbles through the air right beside his ear.

Jason whirls around to face his visitor. “Jesus, old man, didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to sneak up on people?”

He grins a bit, because it’s funny. Sneaking up on people is exactly Bruce’s night job. He spent a lot of time and money getting people to tell him how to do it best.

Bruce doesn’t grin. His lips don’t even quirk. He doesn’t give Jason one of those flat looks that mean he’s amused and not impressed about it. One day he’s going to laugh for real at a joke and he’ll be so out of practice he’ll probably sprain something.

Not one of Jason’s jokes though. Nobody can laugh at those anymore.

“Jason…”

Jason holds his breath because Bruce doesn’t always talk to him. A lot of the time he just comes to stand and brood. When he does talk, it’s always slightly rueful, like he’s wondering why he’s even bothering to try communicating with his dead son. 

Bruce sighs and drags a hand down his face. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. Knowing Bruce, he probably hasn’t.

“Y’know, you really should take better care of yourself, old man,” Jason says. “As much as some company here would be nice, I think Dickie would spontaneously combust if you left him in charge too soon.”

Bruce frowns pensively at Jason’s headstone, the words floating right past him. Jason sighs and flops down to lay on his stomach. “Gosh Bruce just spit out whatever you wanna say or leave, I don’t need your brooding ruining my good mood today.”

Several more minutes of birds chirping and leaves rustling gently in the wind pass. Jason kicks his feet absently and starts twisting strands of grass together. Must be something to do with how the planes work, because he can touch things that are part of the physical world but he can’t touch people. Which sucks because right now he’d really like to lightly kick Bruce’s leg and tell him to stop being a broody bitch and say what he wants to say already. 

Then Bruce says, “I never told you how much I cared. Not as much as I probably should have.”

And Jason’s brain comes to a screeching halt because  _ wait, what? _ “No,” he says. “Bruce no, please, can we not do this now? It’s a nice day and I swear to god if you make me cry-”

“Dick keeps telling me I need to say it more, that my children aren’t going to just magically understand that I love them.” Bruce frowns, like that perplexes him. “He doesn’t understand why I… He knows, that caring is a vulnerability, that I can’t just-” Bruce cuts himself off with a frustrated noise. “Batman can’t have weaknesses. People can be comprised, weaknesses can be exploited, willingly or otherwise, and I can’t afford that. I have to be better than that.”

Jason sits up, attention fixed on his adoptive father. He knows, distantly, that he’s only hearing this because Bruce thinks he isn’t, but he’s too caught up in what Bruce is trying to say to parse why he’s saying it now.

“We- They’re not going to turn on you, Bruce, jesus, they’re your  _ family _ .”

Even as he says it, it rings hollow. Sheila had been his family and she’d turned on him.

Bruce sighs again. And then he does something he’s never done before; he sits down. This close, Jason could lie down and his head would be in Bruce’s lap. 

He doesn’t allow himself the disappointment of trying.

“I don’t know why I ever thought I could avoid those weaknesses,” Bruce confides. “Caring is… inevitable. ” His lips twist, but it’s a fond grimace. “God, I sound like I’ve been spending too much time with Clark.”   


“Hey, don’t say that like it’s a bad thing,” Jason scolds. “Uncle Clark is nice.”

“Can you keep a secret, Jay?” Bruce asks, and there’s a sardonic edge to it that you wouldn’t be able to pick up on from just looking at the hard lines of his face. “All of that is true, that caring is a vulnerability, but it’s not… The real reason is that I’m scared. I’m  _ terrified _ . It broke me when you died, Jaylad.” He puts a hand over his eyes, drags it down like he can wipe the grief away just like that. “God, I’m still not over it, how can I go through something like that again? It’s easier if… If there’s no one else to lose.”

_ It broke me when you died Jaylad.  _ The words repeat on a loop in Jason’s mind.  _ It broke me. Broke me. Broke me. Broke. _ It makes his eyes burn and his throat ache as he swallows back the emotions that threaten to spill out. 

Seeing Bruce crumble after his death and hearing him admit to it are too wildly different things. Every late night breakdown, every criminal sent to hospital in critical condition, every time Alfred was shut out. Witnessing it had cut Jason to the core, but he’d always thought, always hoped, that Bruce would come out on top. He was Batman for god’s sake, he’d grieve for a bit and then he’d pick himself up and go back to normal.  _ It broke me when you died Jaylad. _ But that hadn’t really happened, had it? The Bruce Tim and Dick and all the others complain about now is a different Bruce to Jason’s Bruce. He hasn’t even smiled  _ once _ in all the times he’s come to visit.

“Dammit, old man,” Jason grumbles. He scrubs at his eyes. “I thought I told you not to make me cry.”

Bruce ducks his head, wiping suspiciously at his own eyes. “God Jay,” he whispers. “I miss you so much. So damn much it  _ hurts _ .”

Jason scoots closer, close enough that he can pull his legs up to his chest and lean his head over so it’s almost like it’s on Bruce’s shoulder. “I miss you too, Bruce,” he says. And they sit there, as the afternoon sun drifts further through the sky, both thinking that the other person can’t hear them. Both alone in their sorrow.

—

Jason crosses his arms and peers down at the kid. He gets what Dick’s talking about; he does look like Bruce. But he thought the kid’d be taller. Not that Jason’s complaining. Dick spends so much time yapping about him being a big brother that Jason’s almost relieved to actually be bigger than one of his siblings for once. He looms over the kid with a grin.

“So you’re the pipsqueak, huh? The baby bat? The littlest bird?”

The kid tips his chin up. Glares. Opens his mouth and snaps, “My name is Damian!”

And Jason takes a step back. The grin drops from his face. “Holy shit. Holy shit holy shit holy fricken fruitcakes.”

The kid is still glaring. Right  _ at _ Jason. 

“Oh my god.” It’s ironic but for once Jason’s not feeling the humour. “You’re dead too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :) I'd really appreciate if it you left a comment, or if you'd prefer you can come yell at me on tumblr [here](http://tantalum-cobalt.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Edit: I forgot to link my friend Dove's account! We're collabing for this AU so part two will be written by her, and in the meantime you can check out more of her writing on tumblr [here](http://dove-among-bats.tumblr.com/) or find her on AO3 [here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Doves_Writing/pseuds/Doves_Writing).


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